XRS Australia Rd4 report

The fourth round of the 2019 XRAY Racing Series Australia was held at the Newcastle On Road Rc Club in Williamtown recently. Many drivers made their way to this fantastic track for the fourth round of the series and received a perfect late winter’s weekend. The weekend opened with a full day of practise for all competitors on Saturday, although the sun was shining the August winds made the track very difficult for all competitors even for the local guns drivers. The ever changing track conditions made it hard to get a read on who would go into Sunday’s qualifying and final rounds as favourites. The weekend had entries across TC 13.5 stock, TC 21.5 Sportsman, 12th scale 13.5 and a Tamiya truck as an exhibition class. 13.5T Stock, qualifying was close with the top five position swapping each qualifying run except for Alex Illievski (Yokomo) who clean swept qualifying to head into the finals as TQ. Given how close qualifying was, the top half of the field were all keen to make their mark in the finals and it did not disappoint. After 3 very competitive finals and again the top half of the field swapping position during each final, A.Illievski landed the win with a tie for 2nd, after count back Christian Silva (XRAY) got 2nd with Damien Zarb (XRAY) 3rd.

21.5T Sportsman was very different to 13.5 with the top 3 drivers clearing out from the pack during qualifying and the finals. Besides some small incidents with back markers in the first final, the positions didn’t change for all three finals with Local gun Brendan George (Yokomo) taking the win. The evergreen Ray Zarb (XRAY) in 2nd and rounding off the podium, Gerard Elias.

In the 12th scale class, Daniel Maher conquered qualifying to head into the finals as TQ. During the finals mechanical gremlins got the better of him and he missed out of a podium spot. The overall win went to Greg Brooks followed by Mark Wallin and Andrew Curless rounding out the podium. Tamiya Trucks saw Andrew Curless getting the wins and bringing home the silverware from runner-up, Wade Faber and 3rd placed Andrew Kelman.